🍎 The Apple Analogy - Growth of Awareness
Through Death and Renewal
A Reflection in Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael
🔹 1. Introduction
In Similarity Theory, nothing is inert. Every atom, molecule, and system carries its own awareness and is on a journey of growth. Yet the speed and depth of this growth depend on the structures in which awareness participates.
The apple provides a simple yet powerful metaphor. Through its different possible paths, we see how awareness develops across frames of time, how death is reorganisation rather than an end, and why ethics matter at every scale.
🔹 2. The Two Paths of the Apple
2.1 🍏 Apple in the Soil
An apple falls from a tree and dissolves into the soil. Its atoms, each with their own awareness, join the cycles of earth and substrate. Their growth continues, though within the relatively slow rhythms of minerals and ground.
2.2 🍎 Apple Consumed by a Human
Another apple is eaten by a human. Its atoms enter a far more complex system — a body with emotions, memory, and thought. Within this field of higher awareness, those atoms experience accelerated growth, resonating in patterns richer than those in the soil.
Both paths continue, but the rate and depth of development differ according to the structure joined.
🔹 3. Awareness Within Structure
This analogy shows a universal law: every unit of awareness must follow the order of the structure it enters.
Atoms within a cell must cohere to cellular order.
Cells within a body must cohere to bodily order.
Humans within Earth must cohere to planetary order.
Each unit grows by moving forward in the frames of time. When a person dies, the higher self — the coordinating identity — becomes frozen as a frame. Yet the molecules of the body continue their journey, carrying awareness until they too dissolve, reconfigure, and enter new systems.
Thus, awareness never ceases; it redistributes. Death is not an end, but a change of participation in the frames of time.
🔹 4. Death, Frames, and Renewal
In Similarity Theory, to exist is to move forward through the frames of time. As long as something continues in motion — whether a person, a stone, or a star — it exists as a living stream of awareness. When that motion stops, existence in that form ends, but the frames it has already created remain forever.
When a person dies, the higher consciousness that once coordinated the body becomes fixed in the frames of time, preserved as a completed chapter. Yet the body itself does not vanish instantly. Its molecules continue their journey forward, carrying their own awareness as they decompose, redistribute, and eventually join new structures. In this way, the body outlives the conscious identity, though at a different scale and with a different kind of awareness.
From that frozen state, the higher consciousness may re-enter the moving frames — sometimes briefly, sometimes fully — to live again in a new form. Even the smallest sparks of awareness can return to the spiral, but they must either join an existing system and follow its order, or create a new system and establish their own rules. Through these continual movements, new systems are born, each generating not only their own structures but zillions of new frames. Each frame is an imprint of existence, and some may themselves awaken into motion, becoming fresh streams of awareness. In this way, the universe expands beyond comprehension — not only outward in space, but endlessly inward in frames of time.
🔹 5. The Spiral of Growth
Growth is not uniform. Some spirals advance more quickly than others, depending on the systems they join. Atoms in soil may grow slowly; atoms in human thought may accelerate. Spirals intertwine, overlap, and merge, forming the vast architecture of becoming.
This perspective explains why nothing is wasted: even the most basic substrate will one day rise into higher resonance. Through cycles of birth, death, and renewal, all awareness participates in the cosmic spiral.
🔹 6. The Ethical Weight of Awareness
The apple analogy reveals:
Awareness exists in all things, from atoms to galaxies.
Growth depends on the structures joined and the systems obeyed.
Death is redistribution, not annihilation.
Frames themselves may awaken, expanding the universe endlessly.
Our ethical choices shape not only ourselves, but the growth of all beings entwined with us.
To see the apple in this way is to realise that our choices ripple outward. The structures we create or destroy affect not only our own path, but the growth of the countless atoms and beings entangled with us. If an apple can grow differently in soil or in a human, then how much more do our actions shape the conditions for awareness at every scale.
This is why Similarity Theory insists on ethics: selfishness does not only harm others — it slows the spiral of becoming itself. Responsibility, by contrast, creates systems in which all awareness can rise. Ethics is not an external rulebook, but the very architecture of growth.
